


A woman true and fair

by MadHatter13



Category: Howl's Moving Castle - All Media Types
Genre: Also John Donne's poetry somehow wandered in there as well, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/F, Fem!Howl, Female-Centric, Gen, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Lesbian Character, Lesbian Howl, Queer Character, Queer Sophie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-18
Updated: 2014-11-18
Packaged: 2018-02-26 05:12:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2639354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadHatter13/pseuds/MadHatter13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sophie first hears of the Heartless Witch Howl while working in the hat shop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A woman true and fair

Sophie Hatter first hears of the Heartless Witch Howl while trimming a dainty light rose felt hat with a lace brim and a white silk cowslip. It is just another dull day at the hat shop, and Bessie and the customers are gossiping in that very specific way people sometimes do – in very loud voices, but their mouths covered by gloved hands and their voices theatrically hoarse. It‘s the kind of stage-whisper that is in fact very easy to hear a couple of rooms away.

                ‘They say that she tricks girls into falling in love with her and then steals their hearts!’ Said Miss Germaine in a scandalized voice.

                ‘What, and she doesn’t even make a honest woman out of them first? _I_ heard that she tricks them into signing a declaration of True Love and then eats their souls!’ Said Bessie. The small crowd nodded solemnly. True Love was something that everyone knew to take seriously, although Sophie has never seen it, and wonders how it can be recognized. Presumably there is a permit of some kind. _Ah, we see that you’ve fulfilled the last eleven requirement to graduate to ‘Romance For the Ages’, up from your mere ‘Star-Crossed Lovers’ status. Just sign these forms and we’ll have the paperwork delivered within four-five work days!_

The chatter goes quiet as the talk turns to more mundane things, and Sophie sighs, and trims the hats.

* * *

 

_If thou be’st born to strange sights,_ _  
Things invisible to see..._

* * *

 

The first time she _meets_ the fabled Witch, it’s completely unknowingly and by accident. Once she finally works up the courage to go visit Lettie (or as it turns out, Martha) she is desperately hoping to slip through the street without attracting any attention what-so-ever.

                And then she very nearly falls over when a gorgeous woman who can only be a few years older than her moves to take her arm in so charming and smooth a fashion that Sophie has to do all she can not to run away. Instead, she stares. If any person could be described as a ‘peacock’, she would have knocked every other contestant out at the finish line. Her dress is simply cut, but so wonderfully sewn in red and blue that Sophie briefly wished through a haze of social terror that she could have a chat with her dressmaker just to sneak a few tips.

                ‘Why, my apologies, little mouse! I didn’t mean to scare you.’ Her lips are scarlet and her odd seaglass eyes quirk beneath raised eyebrows. ‘I only wonder if I could buy you drink?’

                There is a delicate hook on the end of that question-mark, and despite herself Sophie blushes heavily. She had been asked out a couple of times when she was younger, and the hat shop didn’t take up so much of her time, but never by someone quite so pretty, nor by a woman. So on reflex, she makes the rather handy gesture which _looks_ like a complicated open-handed shrug, but most people recognize as a handy and non-embarrassing way to communicate, ‘You really are very kind, but I am afraid that I am not inclined towards your particular gender, really, it’s me, not you, except it’s also kinda you, and I’m really sorry.’

                The lady’s smile fell a moment, but returned in a blink. ‘Not to worry, not to worry. Sorry for bothering you, have a great May Day!’

                She’s gone before Sophie can say anything else.

* * *

 

_Ride ten thousand days and nights,_ _  
Till age snow white hairs on thee_

* * *

 

The second time she meets the Fearsome Witch is in the Witch’s own (and _despicably_ dirty) castle, and it causes a whole sequence of words someone of her age and class really should not know to run through her mind in an agglomeration of syllables. Howl looks just as magnificently well turned out as before, and Sophie considers how she manages to retain such a look in a house where dust-mites have probably set up a small but thriving civilization in every corner.

(at night, she imagines she can hear their small yet vital wars play out in the firelight.)

                It’s not really so much the fact that she worries Howl will eat her heart, she muses as she violently cleans cobwebs from the ceiling with a mop. After all, she is older than the hills and looks it, too. It’s more to do with the fact that after the knee-jerk reaction of ‘sorry-I’m-not-interested-I’m-way-too-busy-running-my-business’ she had in fact, thought ‘why not?’ Boys were decent enough in moderation, but she’d never taken the time to consider whether any other gender would be of interest to her. After all, no-one in their right mind would want to walk out with or marry the eldest of three. At best, they would be horrifically boring to be around; at worst a failure or even a villain.

                The point was, she had no intentions to reveal who she was to someone she had rejected out of hand quite rudely, even and especially since the person in question was apparently a ruthless evil Witch. Frankly, that was just common sense.

* * *

 

_Thou, when thou return’st, wilt tell me,_ _  
All strange wonders that befell thee_

* * *

 

                ‘I think Howl likes you,’ says Michael one morning over breakfast, when their dreaded overlady has just left the house in a cloud of steam and perfume. ‘Not the way she likes the girls she courts,’ he continued, seeing the slightly disturbed look on her face. ‘Ew, you’re old enough to be her grandmother. I mean, I think she likes having you around. She even seems to notice you’re here, most of the time, even when she’s busy ensnaring some poor girl. She didn’t even seem to know I was here for half a year after I sneaked inside.’

                Privately, Sophie thinks that Michael has rather a low opinion of himself – which probably wasn’t helped by the closest thing around to a parental figure encouraging his academic and magical growth but is rather pants at anything else – and resolves to try and do something about that. Although she suspects Martha has been doing her own bit to punt some of the self-depreciation out of the boy’s system.

                But she only says, ‘I should hope so. At least she can see through the windows now.’

                Michael fiddles with a piece of bread, and accidentally flicks it somewhere on the floor. To Sophie’s satisfaction, he picks it up to throw it away instead of just leaving it there, like she suspects he would have not long ago. ‘It’s lonely here, sometimes. There was the three of us, but there’s only so many things a student can talk about to a teacher, or a fire demon, and a famous magician to anyone at all.’ He fiddled some more. ‘So it’s nice, to have someone else.’

                Sophie quietly takes it for the acceptance that it is, and decides to at least try be nicer to Howl when she gets home.

* * *

 

_And swear,_ __  
No where  
Lives a woman true, and fair.

* * *

 

Howl’s face is bright white and dangerously drawn with some distant regret – no, concern, in the light of Calcifer’s flames.

                ‘To catch a falling star-‘ she begins with such feeling that Sophie realizes they are past green slime mood and into something much more important, ‘Is the most dangerous, immoral, _stupid_ thing you could possibly have considered!’ By all rights, she should be directing the speech at Michael, who was the one who actually tried to catch one, but Sophie gets the feeling that the raging speech is largely meant for her as well.

                ‘Why?’ She asks primly, refusing to be cowed by the Wicked Witch of the Castle.

                ‘ _Because –‘_ She begins, then stops. And Sophie thinks to herself, _so it’s the same with curses and contracts, then. Of course you don’t want to make it_ easy _for people and just let them tell you what’s wrong. Bloody magic!_

‘What are you getting so mad about?’ Asks Calcifer from the grate. ‘You caught one yourself, after all.’

                ‘ _Yes, and I_ –‘

She falls silent. It’s a very, very long silence.

                And in the privacy of her mind, Sophie thinks, _aha._

* * *

 

_If thou find’st one, let me know,_ _  
Such a pilgrimage were sweet_

* * *

 

Of course, she had previously been busy being angry after she found out Howl is courting her sister, but even that gets put on the back burner (and she’s developed quite a few of those by now; so many things to be mad about after all) when Howl at last brings them beyond the dark door.

                The Great Sorceress Pendragon is suddenly wrapped in a worn coat emblazoned with the legend ‘Welsh Rugby’ and is looking much less dapper than usual, but it doesn’t seem to matter to her all that much when she hugs her niece and plays deaf to her sister, who calls her Hywela. They look as if they may have been quite alike once upon a time, but there are differences. Howl, Sophie has noticed, has the hands of someone who has worked, even if it’s mostly on spells and enchantments, even with all her potions and lotions; exploding magic and fire and metalwork leaves marks. Her sister, however, has her nails grown long and painted. Where Howl is a perpetual smiler when things are going her way, her sister looks like someone who started frowning when she was born and isn’t about to stop now. And yet they look so young, standing next to each other, as if they couldn’t possible have had the time to grow apart as much as they obviously have. Curses really _do_ give you a sense of perspective, she thinks.

                They retrieve the location of Michael’s spell from Howl’s nephew, and are almost immediately thereafter bottlenecked on the staircase as Howl’s sister nags on as if the world is about to end, and Howl just stands there and takes it with a sort of dull look of amusement on her face.

                ‘...and do not want you here out of the blue ruining whatever decency this family has left, not after you ripped it all to shreds so spectacularly in collage!’

                ‘Oh, naturally,’ Howl replies in a droll tone of voice that is really not at all funny. ‘I do try. Disgrace, homewrecker, dyke... It’s all in a day’s work.’

                _‘What are they talking about?’_ Michael whisperes to her out of the corner of his mouth while trying not to move his lips. He might as well have set up a brass band on the landing and Megan would not have noticed. Sophie shrugs.

                ‘ _Don’t_ you use such language in my house! And I do not want you around the kids putting some kind of, of, _influence_ on them.’

                Howl nods. ‘I am well known to be contagious, as you can clearly see by the pink feather boa Michael is currently wearing.’ Behind her, the apprentice looks down at himself in apprehension, expecting a snake of unlikely colour to appear by magic.

                Not even pausing to acknowledge her sister’s nonsense comment, Megan continues sourly, ‘I suppose I should have know when you joined the rugby league-’

                ‘But of course! _Obviously_ any interest in sports must be relevant as to who I choose to sleep with!’ Howl’s smile is so bright it might have out-done Clacifer, but Sophie has heard enough. She has no idea what they are talking about, but she knows well enough that when Howl is uncomfortable, she resorts to sarcasm to slither out of the conversation, although she does not seem to be succeeding right now.

                So she musters up all the arrogance and haughtiness she has in her aged self, and sails past Megan in such a majestic manner that she suspects that Madam Pentstemmon herself could not have done better, and sells her some rubbish enough to make her shut up and let them leave.

* * *

 

_Yet do not, I would not go,_ _  
Though at next door we might meet_

* * *

 

                Howl is distinctly quiet on the journey to Miss Angorian, and even though Sophie expects her to immediately pull out the charm on the woman, she is remarkably courteous and restrained, the corners of her eyes tight as she receives Miss Angorian’s remarks on her reputation and then the recital of the curse. She is equally subdued on the trip back, and when they return to the castle. Sophie waits it out, because she can tell from her expression that she is going to have to talk to someone or burst, and as Michael had said, some Things you can’t talk about with some People.

                So she sits in front of the fire, where Calcifer is slumbering, and works on restoring the dress so regretfully ruined by the Hair Incident, and waits. Michael potters around, but eventually goes to bed, and she listens to Howl fiddle with a spell on the workbench behind her.

                There is a long period of silence.

                ‘In the world I come from,’ Howl begins, still busy at the workbench, ‘People have... opinions on those who are attracted to people of the same gender.’

                Well, that was certainly not what she’d expected. ‘Opinions? Like whether they make a good match?’ She ventures.

                Howl sighes. ‘No... This is going to be hard to explain.’

                ‘Start with the beginning, then.’

                She huffs. ‘Alright. Well. First of all, if you are a woman who falls in love with women, or women and men and other... Or a man who... Well, you get the picture, you do not have certain privileges.’

                ‘People here don’t have any special privileges,’ comments Sophie, repositioning the needle.

                ‘Only compared to some places,’ says Howl tiredly. She wonders what her face looks like just then, but doesn’t turn around. ‘See, for example, you are not allowed to marry whom you like.’

                ‘Huh?’

                ‘All sorts of reasons there; religion, tradition, culture, all that. _Bad_ reasons, the lot of them, but people still like to hide behind them.’ And now she is almost babbling. ‘And there are even better things like, you might have nasty things shouted after you in the street, or someone might beat you, or even kill you, and your family might turn you out and people might not want you working for them –‘

                In the hurricane of words, Sophie turned around and asked the only question that came to mind. ‘ _..._ Why?’

                And she can see Howl’s face now, in the flickering firelight, and it looks... Young and not so certain and confident, and terribly vulnerable - her knees pulled up to her chin and her arms wrapped around her legs. Sophie is surprised how angry this makes her. The witch just shrugs.

                ‘The world isn’t always a nice place.’

                That is a terribly resigned thing to say in the circumstances, but her words still echo in Sophie’s mind. ‘Is that why your sister was arguing with you?’

                Howl gives a small laugh, which utterly fails to convince. ‘She thinks I’m going to, to _turn_ her children, or something. Like I’m some sort of a vampire.’ She catches Sophie’s confused expression. ‘She thinks I’m going to make them become like me,’ she says.

                ‘But... that’s not how it works...’

                ‘Try telling her that. She thinks people who are different like this are born wrong, or are ‘made’ wrong through some pretty horrific things I’m not going to detail here.’ She sniffles, and it dawns on Sophie that if Howl is on the verge of crying and _doesn’t want anyone to know about it_ , things had to be terribly bad. ‘And she’s still mad at what happened in collage.’

                ‘And what did happen?’ She asks, cautiously, watching Howl’s face carefully.

                ‘I got a scholarship, see, which was pretty rare for a lower-middle class family like ours, and I was so happy about it. I loved nothing more than learning, and getting a chance to get closer to magic, and this place. And I met a couple girls that I liked, who liked me, and the school board found out and threatened to cut my funds off unless I didn’t stop associating with them, or any others. And on top of _that_ , they wanted me to declare to everyone who knew that I had ‘just been confused.’’ Howl’s hands clench then, and in the corners of the room shadows flicker. Behind her in the grate, Sophie can sense that Calcifer is no longer dormant, but is keeping quiet all the same.

                ‘What did you do?’ She asks hurriedly, hoping to prevent another attack of demonic images and disembodied screams.

                Howl almost seems to perk up. ‘I told them to stick it where the sun don’t shine, packed my bags and left for Ingary at the first opportunity – the same night, in fact.’ But she sags again. ‘The two girls, though... They took the offer. Told people I had ‘bespelled’ them into loving me.’

                ‘But you would never do that,’ says Sophie, and fails to be surprised at the rock-hard certainty in her own voice. Oh, all right, she leads them on and bails when trouble shows up, but it was clear enough from when she first met her that Howl wouldn’t completely derail a person’s proclivities if they did not run in her direction. It would be like expecting Calcifer to start burning only underwater.

                (the demon, meanwhile, is still very quiet in the grate, but Sophie gets an impression of a mixture of anger and affront on behalf of the person whose heart he keeps. blue and orange morality or not; you can’t be joined such a way with someone without having some kind of a personal investment in them.)

                The look of happy gratitude she receives from the witch is very nearly worth the long day of failing to catch stars, facing unkind sisters and words and even more unkind worlds.

* * *

 

_Though she were true, when you met her,_ _  
And last, till you write your letter_

* * *

 

They move, and although Sophie constantly thinks that this should be her chance to leave, she never quite does. Howl is very nearly bouncing off the walls to get going and getting as far away from the Witch of the Waste as possible. She still won’t tell Sophie whether the black dress really is that beautiful red and blue one Sophie accidentally bespelled to attract women of a certain disposition. She keeps thinking that before she leaves, she has to get that dress away from her, if only to clean up her own mess. Howl wouldn’t want to force anyone to fall in love with her – especially not when she’s so talented at making them relinquish any reason not to.

                Sophie doesn’t think she’s ever been so furious in her life when Percival insinuates what he does. If she has fallen for Howl, then it’s no-one’s fault but her own, because of that stupid bespelled dress, and she is about to walk away there and then, when she notices that the manor the new entrance is at has been repainted and _they were listening to what she said_.

                And she finds out that she can get at least _twice_ as angry as all that - at Howl, for knowing Sophie’s curse, and at herself, for thinking Howl wouldn’t notice the bespelled dress and do something about it _which is so embarrassing_ and _what if she deciphered that last part of Percival’s words_?

As a result, she hurls weed-killer at them – it seems fair enough in return for the green slime. Really, which one of them is the worse person here?

                So she doesn’t talk to anyone at all, even after Howl goes out and gets drunk for her rugby reunion, whatever that is. Not until she returns so absolutely swazzled that she wakes _everyone_ up by loudly shaming the walls for not keeping still. There is a certain kind of anger that is hard to keep hot while living in close quarters with people without feeling like you are being rather silly and anyway it’s hard not to say things like, ‘Pass the salt’ or ‘Has the milkman come yet?’

                And suddenly she’s _flooded_ with everyone she has spent the last few months trying to avoid not just, she realizes, because she couldn’t stand for them to see her old, but because then she really might have left, and not only failed to break her curse, but resigned herself to a life of dullness forever. But she is so very happy to see them, all the same. Fanny, in particular, she wishes she could apologize to for thinking the things she did, but then she would have to admit to thinking them in the first place, and she doesn’t want to ruin the mood. And then Miss Angorian somehow gets in _again_ , and this time Sophie _makes_ her leave because now she knows what her veiled comments about Howl really meant and well, she could stick it where the sun didn’t shine for all Sophie cared.

(although she does practically have to wrestle that guitar away from her first.)

                Lettie, for one, gives her a very specific kind of Look when she does that, but Sophie doesn’t have the time or the privacy to explain that it’s not for the reason she thinks (well, not entirely at any rate.) And she wonders how her little sister knows her better than she knows herself, and knew to send Percival to ‘protect’ her before she had even seen Sophie, never mind confirm what her feelings were.

                Besides – she kinda blew her chances at all of that before she even moved into the Castle, and anyway Howl isn’t interested in someone who has resigned themselves to being an old woman in mind _and_ body.

                (all this she tells herself as she listens to her snore upstairs enough to bring down the Castle and every unexpected visitor within it.)

* * *

 

_Yet she_  
Will be  
False, ere I come, to two, or three.

* * *

 

After they deal with the Witch of the Waste (really, there are far too many witches in the immediate vicinity and Sophie briefly considers assigning them numbers) the last of the curse comes true, and they are running at the speed of wind across the desert.

                (sophie knows for a fact that what’s left of the second verse has long come true – howl may say that she won’t take off the spell to see if her hair really _has_ gone white, but when she came down to breakfast the day before sophie knew immediately that she hadn’t simply bleached it. it suits her, the way everything does.)

                ‘I really must commend you on throwing Miss Angorian out, though,’ the witch says over the din of the wind as they skirt the edge of a mountain. ‘I suppose ‘teach me to fend of envy’s stinging’ wasn’t for me, after all.’’

                ‘I wasn’t _envious!_ ’ But she concedes. ‘Mostly it was because she said nasty things about you.’

                ‘You say nasty things about me all the time!’

                ‘At least you know those are true! She had no call coming into people’s castles and calling you names I don’t even know the meaning off!’

                ‘How nice of you, I’m sure!’ But there’s that little bit of happiness again on her face, and it’s the right kind of not-really-an-argument that Sophie has grown really rather fond off.

                ‘Anyway, it wasn’t _me_ who chose the absolute worst time to get drunk out of my mind the day before I _knew_ my nemesis would try to go after me,’ she says as they skid over a lake.

                ‘I was terrified! What else was I supposed to do to get the courage to actually face her? Oh, other people say they have nasty ex’s, but I’m pretty sure this one takes the cake!’

                ‘So you’re saying you ran away _on purpose_ so you could force yourself to face her?’ She just _knew_ all of this would take a lot of time to sort out afterwards.

                ‘It’s the only way I know! I’m still working on dealing with Megan the same way, but I can’t admit it to myself,’ she yelled over the screaming wind.

                Well, if you were going to ask for an honest wind, you weren’t really going to get a better offer.

***

                ‘I _was_ born to strange sights,’ says Howl. ‘Things invisible to see. And I was just on my way to bed when you interrupted me.’

                They stand together in the parlour, Sophie with her hands on her hips (oh, how she has missed being able to properly stand straight!) with her reddish hair braided before bed. Michael has gone to sleep, although he was reluctant to say goodbye to Martha, but it wouldn’t be proper otherwise. Sophie conveniently fails to consider that while it might appear proper to have a ninety-year old housekeeper living in your front room, it probably wasn’t proper to be an unmarried young woman living with a _very_ eligible young bachelorette, even if you still qualified as her housekeeper. Or, for that matter, to stand so close together in only your night clothes.

                ‘I would like to talk to you. Honestly.’ The immediate dread on Howl’s face is so strong that it makes her laugh, which brings her only a chagrined look in return. ‘You had such good practice out in the Waste today.’

                ‘My dear Sophie,’ says the Witch of the Castle, raising a finger dramatically. ‘Being honest in the face of drama, intrigue and potential doom is _far_ from the same as being honest in the face of late-night tea and quiet discussion.’ But she isn’t slithering out, even though she talks like it. She could have left for her room as soon as Sophie had asked her to talk, but she hadn’t. It doesn’t worry her.

                ‘Will you sit with me?’ She simply asks. There is always time for jest and banter and not-really-arguments, but sometimes you also need things to be clear.

                Howl makes a really quite complicated face that indicates she is doing this against her will, but since Sophie knows she seldom does something she finds truly unpleasant, she doesn’t mind.

                Remarkably, Howl is the first to speak. ‘I admit I didn’t just go get drunk because I was too frightened to face the Witch,’ she says. ‘In fact, I had wondered for a while whether you would turn out to be the pretty girl I met on May Day, and since I had become rather hopelessly in love with you I found the prospect rather wretched since you, you know.’ She makes that complicated gesture of rebuttal Sophie had made when they first met.

                ‘Oh.’ Sophie knows she doesn’t blush, because people don’t do that nearly as often as books like to tell you, but she still feels like it.

                ‘And then you got mad enough at Percival – well, that misshapen mixture of Prince Justin and Sulivan – to hurl weed-killer at him, and I was really _confused_.’ Sophie wonders if the reason Howl doesn’t like being so upfront about things that matter is because she rather loses her ability at eloquence and becomes almost awkward. It’s an odd thing to find endearing, but she does.

                ‘I don’t think I knew, then,’ she says. ‘I was so busy convincing myself I was fated to have a dreadful life that I didn’t consider anything that might be even remotely interesting.’

                Howl goggles (a remarkably apt description of something Sophie had never quite managed to imagine) and says, ‘So, you, um. And me. ?’

                Setting aside the fact that no-one should be able to so accurately pronounce the tone of a question-mark, Sophie gives this some though. ‘I believe so. Do you mind?’

                ‘Hm?’ She seems absolutely lost for words.

                ‘I mean, I’m not sure if I could handle a third or fourth party in a relationship, but I also never thought I could do magic or defeat evil witches or fire demons. Then again, you’re plenty enough to deal with even when I’m just your housekeeper.’

                ‘No! I mean. What? I don’t know? I’m pretty sure I’m good with being a serial monogamist. _Not_ that I considering finding someone else at the moment. Uh.’

                She really does look offensively adorable in her confusion, so Sophie just leans in to kiss her, which is one field where Howl _definitely_ knows what she’s doing. And then they go to bed, because it’ll certainly be a long day tomorrow of managing kings, wizards, sisters and apprentices, although they can probably fit in at least one good argument. After that, who knows?

                True Love can take a hike, Sophie decides as she curls up on the mattress. This is so much more interesting.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really not certain how things went down re: Miss Angorian and if she wasn't 'kidnapped', why did Sophie go to the Witch of the Waste? But this is mostly character study, so I digress.
> 
> Hywela is the feminine form of Hywel, which is the original form of Howell, which is where Howl gets his name from in the book.


End file.
